A steady rather than spectacular start to his final round was enough to give Tommy Fleetwood the outright lead at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
The former Challenge Tour number one, seeking his first European Tour victory, had six pars and a birdie at the par five second in his first seven holes to reach 17 under par.
Playing partner and overnight joint-leader Ricardo Gonzalez had a double bogey at the opening hole and, although he birdied the next, he handed that shot straight back with a bogey at the third.
A gain at the seventh did get him back to 15 under, with Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger moving into outright second with an eagle at the second, two birdies and a bogey at the seventh.
Gonzalez was level with Scottish pair Stephen Gallacher and Scott Henry, fellow Argentine Emiliano Grillo, Australian Brett Rumford and England’s Paul Waring as a host of players queued to mount a challenge.
Wiesberger had been beaten in a five man play-off at this event two years ago, and the odds on a similarly dramatic finish were shortening with only five shots covering the top 17 players.
